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Researchers: Only “luck” prevented Earth from being wiped out

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But they think so for the strangest reason: “Scientists found that only nine out of 8,700 planets could survive for as long as the Earth has”

Researchers at the University of Sourthhampton carried out mass simulations of climate evolution of 100,000 randomly generated planets.

Each planet was simulated 100 times with random climate-altering events occurring each time in order to see if habitable life could be sustained for three billion years like on Earth.

Of these planets, 9 per cent (8,700) were successful at least once but, of those, nearly all (about 8,000) were successful fewer than 50 times out of 100 and most (about 4,500) were successful fewer than 10 times out of 100.

Adam Smith, “Life on Earth Didn’t Get Wiped out Because of ‘Luck’, Study Suggests ” at Independent

But why is that supposed to be luck? Earth appears organized to be highly adaptable. And that is not luck.

Darwinism makes people stupid and naturalism rots the brain.

See also: What becomes of science when the evidence does not matter?

Comments
Polistra you state,
Lovelock’s Gaea (Gaia) hypothesis makes sense.
Yet the other day you stated this,
"These writers are Gaian demons, not Christians." - Polistra https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/new-paper-by-steiner-thorvaldsen-on-intelligent-design-and-natural-theology/#comment-724833 Of note: Gai·an adjective: Gaian relating to or denoting the Gaia hypothesis, the theory that living matter on the earth collectively defines and regulates the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life.
Polistra, This appears to be a direct contradiction on your part, i.e. 'do you believe the Gaia hypothesis is the work of demons or do you believe it makes sense?" Personally, I find that the Gaia hypothesis does not go nearly far enough in explaining why the earth has had a relatively stable, life enabling, climate over its 4 billion year history. For instance, although the Gaia hypothesis correctly notes that bacterial life on earth has helped terraform the primordial earth into a habitat that is suitable for more advance life to appear, the Gaia hypothesis can never hope to explain why the orbit of the earth has remained in its life enabling orbit for the past 4 billion years,
“You might also think that these disparate bodies are scattered across the solar system without rhyme or reason. But move any piece of the solar system today, or try to add anything more, and the whole construction would be thrown fatally out of kilter. So how exactly did this delicate architecture come to be?” R. Webb - Unknown solar system 1: How was the solar system built? - New Scientist – 2009 Is the Solar System Stable? By Scott Tremaine - 2011 Excerpt: So what are the results? Most of the calculations agree that eight billion years from now, just before the Sun swallows the inner planets and incinerates the outer ones, all of the planets will still be in orbits very similar to their present ones. In this limited sense, the solar system is stable. However, a closer look at the orbit histories reveals that the story is more nuanced. After a few tens of millions of years, calculations using slightly different parameters (e.g., different planetary masses or initial positions within the small ranges allowed by current observations) or different numerical algorithms begin to diverge at an alarming rate. More precisely, the growth of small differences changes from linear to exponential:,,, As an example, shifting your pencil from one side of your desk to the other today could change the gravitational forces on Jupiter enough to shift its position from one side of the Sun to the other a billion years from now. The unpredictability of the solar system over very long times is of course ironic since this was the prototypical system that inspired Laplacian determinism. Fortunately, most of this unpredictability is in the orbital phases of the planets, not the shapes and sizes of their orbits, so the chaotic nature of the solar system does not normally lead to collisions between planets. However, the presence of chaos implies that we can only study the long-term fate of the solar system in a statistical sense, by launching in our computers an armada of solar systems with slightly different parameters at the present time—typically, each planet is shifted by a random amount of about a millimeter—and following their evolution. When this is done, it turns out that in about 1 percent of these systems, Mercury’s orbit becomes sufficiently eccentric so that it collides with Venus before the death of the Sun. Thus, the answer to the question of the stability of the solar system—more precisely, will all the planets survive until the death of the Sun—is neither “yes” nor “no” but “yes, with 99 percent probability.” https://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2011-summer/solar-system-tremaine Rare Planetary System BY HUGH ROSS - JUNE 12, 2017 Excerpt: Thanks in large part to research on extrasolar planets, astronomers also know that every planet in the solar system fulfills a key role in making advanced life possible on Earth. Two Brazilian astronomers showed that even tiny adjustments in the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would prove catastrophic for life in our solar system.5 Regions beyond the precise orbital positions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune abound in destructive mean motion resonances. As it is, Uranus is close to a 7:1 resonance with Jupiter (where Jupiter would make exactly 7 orbits around the Sun for every single orbit of Uranus), a 2:1 resonance with Neptune, and a 3:1 resonance with Saturn. Meanwhile, Jupiter and Saturn are very close to 5:2 resonance. If any of the solar system gas giant planets’ orbital positions were to shift ever so slightly, that shift would destabilize the orbit of one or more of the eight planets in the solar system with catastrophic consequences for a long history of life on Earth. Three Canadian astronomers further demonstrated that the orbital positions of Venus, Earth, and Mars must be fine-tuned so as to break up mean motion resonances that could be damaging for life on Earth. They showed that even the orbital features of the Earth-Moon system must be fine-tuned for this purpose.6 The Earth-Moon system suppresses a resonance in Venus’ orbit that is generated from the orbital patterns of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Unless the Earth-Moon system is configured the way it is, both Venus’ and Mercury’s orbits would destabilize and generate destructive chaos throughout the inner solar system. Every planet in our solar system and Earth’s Moon contribute to making advanced life possible on Earth. The solar system’s array of eight planets must be exactly the way it is. Have you thanked God today for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2017/06/12/rare-planetary-system
,,, nor can the Gaia hypothesis ever hope to explain a myriad of other astronomical conditions that are necessary in order to have a planet that can host life over its entire 4 billion year history.
Linked from Appendix C from Dr. Ross's book, 'Why the Universe Is the Way It Is';?Probability Estimates for the Features Required by Various Life Forms: Excerpt: Requirements to sustain bacteria for 90 days or less: Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10-614 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 501 parameters approx. 10^-333 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^311 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracles. Requirements to sustain unicellar life for three billion year: Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-859 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-303 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^22 Probability for occurrence of all 676 parameters approx. 10^-578 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^556 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle Requirements to sustain intelligent physical life: Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1333 dependency factors estimate approx. 10^-324 longevity requirements estimate approx. 10^45 Probability for occurrence of all 816 parameters approx. 10^-1054 Maximum possible number of life support bodies in observable universe approx. 10^22 Thus, less than 1 chance in 10^1032 exists that even one such life-support body would occur anywhere in the universe without invoking divine miracle http://d4bge0zxg5qba.cloudfront.net/files/compendium/compendium_Part3_ver2.pdf
Nor can the Gaia hypothesis ever hope to explain where bacterial life came from in the first place.
DID LIFE START BY CHANCE? Excerpt: Molecular biophysicist, Harold Morowitz (Yale University), calculated the odds of life beginning under natural conditions (spontaneous generation). He calculated, if one were to take the simplest living cell and break every chemical bond within it, the odds that the cell would reassemble under ideal natural conditions (the best possible chemical environment) would be one chance in 10^100,000,000,000. You will have probably have trouble imagining a number so large, so Hugh Ross provides us with the following example. If all the matter in the Universe was converted into building blocks of life, and if assembly of these building blocks were attempted once a microsecond for the entire age of the universe. Then instead of the odds being 1 in 10^100,000,000,000, they would be 1 in 10^99,999,999,916 (also of note: 1 with 100 billion zeros following would fill approx. 20,000 encyclopedias) http://members.tripod.com/~Black_J/chance.html
As should be needless to say, these are some rather glaring holes for any supposed scientific hypothesis that hopes to explain why bacterial life, (and/or life as a whole), appears to be designed in such a way so as to regulate "the material conditions necessary for the continuance of life". For that we need to appeal to God. Which is something that the (guru) of the Gaia Hypothesis, James Lovelock, explicitly seeks to avoid.
The Gaia guru's gospel,,, "When life began, over 3.5bn years ago, organisms used the planet's raw materials and returned their wastes and dead bodies. Doing this changed the chemical composition of the atmosphere, ocean and surface rocks. Evolution by natural selection ensured that those organisms which changed their environment so as to favour their progeny flourished while those who poisoned or made it barren died out. From this convergent evolution of life and the Earth emerged Gaia, our comfortable self-regulating planet." - James Lovelock, July 1999 https://www.theguardian.com/society/1999/aug/04/guardiansocietysupplement5
So, according the preceding article, the Gaia hypothesis is said to have a "guru" in James Lovelock? :) That certainly sounds far more like a religion than any actual scientific hypothesis. Moreover, as a religion, the Gaia hypothesis apparently fails for the same exact reason that it fails as a scientific hypothesis. i.e. It does not go nearly far enough! That is to say, it is a very sad religion that seeks to make a god, (i.e. an object of worship), out of merely the earth and life on earth, rather than reverencing and worshipping almighty God who created the entire universe, as well as the earth and all life on earth. It sounds like a old corny joke but, "My God created Lovelock's Gaian god."
Proverbs 3:19 ? "The Lord by wisdom founded the earth: by understanding He established the heavens;" Crowder - Good God Almighty (Music) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1YWv5FKrKc&feature=emb_logo
bornagain77
March 1, 2021
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Lovelock's Gaea hypothesis makes sense. The earth is linked from deep rocks to stratosphere by an infinite number of negative feedback loops, mostly involving bacteria and fungi. Without those loops, most random perturbations would alter conditions drastically. Life makes our luck.polistra
March 1, 2021
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This is one of those cases where people who usually problem"we believe in science" confidently dismiss the findings as obviously flawed, but with no basis other than their certainty that it must be so.es58
February 28, 2021
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